WordPress Setup

To install this theme you must have a working version of WordPress already installed. If you need help installing WordPress, please follow the instructions in WordPress Codex .

If you are a very new to WordPress world, I recommend you to check some useful resources on how setup and use WordPress:

• WordPress Codex – general information related to WordPress installation on your server.
• First Steps with WordPress – a brief overview of WordPress admin panel.
• FAQ New to WordPress – useful “how to’s”.

Server Requirements

To use mestc WordPress Theme your server must meet the following requirements:

• Server must be running WordPress 5.X or higher. It’s recommended to always use the latest version of WordPress.
• Server must support PHP 7.0 or higher.
• Elementor plugin should be 2.7.3 or higher.

Recommended PHP Configuration

							

	memory_limit = 256M

	upload_max_filesize = 32M

	post_max_size = 32M

	max_execution_time = 180
								
						

What's Included?

After you’ve made a purchase on Themeforest, you’ll need to download theme files from your Themeforest Account. To do this, simply navigate to Downloads tab and find purchased item mestc - Creative Ajax Portfolio WordPress Theme

All Files & Documentation

In the package you will find:

Below is the folder structure and needs to be uploaded to your website root directory:

• 📄 mestc.zip - main theme file. You can install it through WordPress admin panel. If you install it via FTP then unzip it first and use the extracted folder.
• 📄 mestc-child.zip - child theme. For advanced users who are about to make code changes.
• 📁 Demo Content – folder that contains all the demo data. Demo is really helpful to get you familiar
  with all the theme features and possibilities. Setting up demo data is covered in this user guide.
• 📁 Documentation - folder with the user guide.

Installable WordPress file only

• mestc.zip – main theme file. You can install it through WordPress admin panel. If you install it via FTP then unzip it first and use the extracted folder.

Installing via WordPress Panel

Follow the steps below to install theme through WordPress admin panel:

Step 1.

Navigate to Appearance → Themes and click Add New

Step 2.

Click Upload Theme

Step 3.

Select your downloaded theme file mestc.zip

( Installing & Update ) via FTP Upload

If you would like to install the theme via FTP, follow the next steps:

Step 1.

Extract mestc.zipfile that you’ve downloaded previously. You should get a folder named📁 mestcwith the following files and folders.

Step 2.

Using FTP Client, navigate to 📁 wp-content/themes/ folder under your WordPress website’s root directory.

Step 3.

Upload the folder you’ve extracted on the first step into 📁 wp-content/themes/

Theme Activation

Once the installation is complete, your brand new theme is ready to use. Let’s activate it. To do so, go to

📁 Appearance → Themes

Locate mestc theme cover and clickActivatebutton beneath it

One demo import

After the first theme activation, you should see a simple wizard that will help you with the initial theme setup. Just follow all the steps by clicking Next button. After going through all the steps, you will be ready to use your brand new website.

You will be promted to install child theme, required plugins and import the demo data

If you’ve dismissed the wizard after the theme activation – you can still access it in Appearance -> Theme Setup

If you don’t see this wizard or you have any issues with it, don’t worry. We will go though the classic manual installation and demo import using One Click Demo Import in the next articles.

Plugins Installation & Activation

If installation was successful, you'll see a notice about required plugins for mestc, to proceed click "Begin installing plugins".

Importing Demo Content

If you want to have the same content on your website as Live Preview of Canela theme, you'll need to import demo content.

Make sure you have the set of files in the📁Demo Content folder as follows:

Adjust the home page

Go to Settings → Reading, and select the front page you wish to have for your website.

After you are done, don’t forget to Save Changes

Navigation Menu

setup navigation menu, from admin panel go toAppearance → Menu

Those checkboxes won’t add all your posts immediately to the menu. They just enable the convenient links control for your posts.

Elementor Setup

Go to Elementor → Settings menu

General Options

• Post Types – Posts, Pages, Works
• Disable Default Colors – Yes
• Disable Default Fonts – Yes

Update via WordPress Panel

Step 1.

Navigate to Appearance → Themes and click Add New

Step 2.

Click Upload Theme

Step 3.

Select your downloaded theme file mestc.zip

Step 4.

Select Replace current with uploaded

( Installing & Update ) via FTP Upload

If you would like to install the theme via FTP, follow the next steps:

Step 1.

Extract mestc.zipfile that you’ve downloaded previously. You should get a folder named📁 mestcwith the following files and folders.

Step 2.

Using FTP Client, navigate to 📁 wp-content/themes/ folder under your WordPress website’s root directory.

Step 3.

Upload the folder you’ve extracted on the first step into 📁 wp-content/themes/

Getting Started

All the global theme options can be configured in Customizer (WordPress admin dashboard -> Appearance -> Customize). The options are grouped in several sections, outlined below.

Portfolio custom slug

if you want your portfolio post type to have a custom slug in the url.

Page Preloader

Enable preloader mask while the page is loading.

Effect Cursor

Uploading Site Logo

To upload your logo, go to Customizer → Header → Logo You are free to use the tandard text logo version (with or without tagline) or upload your own brand image.

AJAX Transitions

When navigate loads the target content without reloading the current page.

Smooth Scrolling

mestc has built-in smooth scrolling page feature. It replaces native browser’s scrolling with transforms-based scrolling. As a result – other page transforms, like parallax effect, run smoother as well.

Using Child Theme

A child theme allows you to change small aspects of your site’s appearance yet still preserve your theme’s look and functionality.

What is a Parent Theme?

A parent theme is a complete theme which includes all of the required WordPress template files and assets for the theme to work. All themes – excluding child themes – are considered parent themes. For example, in your download package 📄mestc.zip is a parent mestc theme.

What is a Child Theme?

A child theme inherits the look and feel of the parent theme and all of its functions, but can be used to make modifications to any part of the theme. In this way, customizations are kept separate from the parent theme’s files. Using a child theme lets you upgrade the parent theme without affecting the customizations you’ve made to your site.

How can Child Themes be useful?

Child themes:

• make your modifications portable and replicable;
• keep customization separate from parent theme functions;
• allow parent themes to be updated without destroying your modifications;
• allow you to take advantage of the effort and testing put into parent theme;
• save on development time since you are not recreating the wheel; and
• are a great way to start learning about theme development.

Setup Child Theme

If you went though the Wizard Theme Setup you’re likely to already have the child theme installed and activated. If you skipped child theme installation, just get a file 📄mestc-child.zip from your download package and install it as a normal WordPress theme.

mestc Child Theme is installed and activated

Customizing PHP Files

To modify a.php file in the theme, simply copy that file from wp-content/themes/mestc/ directory and paste it to wp-content/themes/mestc-child/ respecting the full path and file name. WordPress will look for the required file in child theme directory first and will use it if it exists. If it doesn't - it will try to look at parent theme directory.

Example 1. Overriding header template

• Copy file 📄wp-content/themes/mestc/header.php and paste it to 📄wp-content/themes/mestc-child/header.php
• Edit 📄header.phpfile in child theme.

Example 2. Overriding preloader template

• Copy file 📄wp-content/themes/mestc/template-parts/preloader/preloader.php
• Create a new directory structure in child theme wp-content/themes/mestc-child/template-parts/preloader
• Paste copied file to wp-content/themes/mestc-child/template-parts/preloader/preloader.php
• Edit 📄preloader.php file in the child theme.

Customizing JavaScript Files

Unlike working with .php files you can't simply override .js files by copying them from parent theme to child theme at the same path. JavaScript files require different workflow since WordPress doesn't look for them in the theme directories.

Here is the plan:

• Copy/paste .js file you want to override in the same way you've been working with .php files
• Locate the script identifier you want to unload in 📄wp-content/themes/mestc/inc/functions/frontend.php
• Unload the selected parent theme script ID
• Load custom script from child theme under the same ID

Theme Translation

Your brand-new theme is fully translatable to other languages. For convenient translation I recommend to install Loco Translate plugin. It’s available for free and allows your to translate your theme right from admin panel.

If you have WordPress automatic updates enabled then the 📁wp-content/languages folder probably exists already. The 📁/loco subfolder is there to protect your custom translations from automatic translation updates. This is critical if you want to avoid your files being deleted behind your back.

Translation Dashboard

If you haven't installed and enabled Loco Translate plugin yet, do that now.

From admin panel go to Loco Translate → Themes menu. This will take you to a list of all available themes in your WordPress. You should see Daro in that list. Click it and you should see the following screen:

Above the language list (which may be empty) you should see a link that saysNew language with an add icon

Add a New Language

To start translating the theme into another language click New language and you'll be taken to a new screen where you can choose the language you want.

Select a language from the dropdown list of common languages. In this example I will select French You could achieve the same result by entering ru into the text field instead.

If you've set up your folders correctly you should see a location marked as Custom

You should select this so your new translations are safe from automatic updates

Once on the editor screen you'll see all the strings the theme has defined in its template file. Untranslated strings are shown in bold blue. To start with they will all be untranslated.

Translate your strings and click Save button once you've done